The midget AAA St. Albert Cardinals suffered a big defeat via the mercy rule Wednesday at Goldstick Baseball Park.
The 11-1 loss to SEEBA 1 in six innings dropped St. Albert’s league record to 2-9. SEEBA improved to 13-1, good for first place in the province.
“We started off the year and we weren’t really a team,” said McLean Cruthers. “Today, we took a few steps back, but I still think we’ve made a lot of progress since the start of the season and we’ve got a lot better.”
St. Albert was credited with eight errors. Field manager Kurtis Lay said once the players stop beating themselves by committing errors and start playing up to their potential, things will turn around.
“It all goes back to beating the game,” said the newcomer from Texas. “You cannot continue to come out here on a day-to-day basis and let the game beat you. We could face a ball club way below our standard right now and unless we beat the game, we’re not going to beat the opponent.”
It didn’t take long for SEEBA to get on the board. In the bottom of the first inning, with runners on second and third base, Markus Fergusson hit an RBI ground ball that scored one run and moved a runner over to third. Next up was Stuart Schroeder, who hit a ball hard along the third-base line. That cashed in Tommy Muhlethaler, and Schroeder was tagged out at second base to end the inning.
SEEBA added one run in the second, but it was in the third they really opened things up. The scoring barrage started with a fly ball to centre field that bounced off Cruthers’ glove and the game quickly unravelled. Fergusson knocked a ball just past Taylor Wiebe at first base for one run and Schroeder, the next batter, smacked a ball along the left-field line for an RBI double that increased the lead to 5-0. By the end of the inning, St. Albert had committed three errors and found themselves down 8-0.
“We probably gave them six outs that inning,” Lay said. “If you give a team six outs, giving up a five-spot, it’s completely expectable … our goal was to put a crooked number up on the scoreboard every inning. We didn’t make that happen.”
St. Albert scored its only run in the top of the fourth. Wiebe and Nathan Coffin drew walks before starting pitcher Nolan Werre came to the plate. Werre hit a ground ball and Coffin was thrown out at second, but on the throw to first to get the double play, the ball sailed wide, allowing Wiebe to come around to score.
Werre left the game after three innings, surrendering eight hits, two walks and eight runs. In three innings, Cruthers allowed three hits, two walks and three runs.
In the bottom off the sixth, SEEBA added three more runs to put the game away.
Ominous looking clouds swirled around the diamond throughout the game, but no rain fell until the final inning. The game was a make-up of a previously rescheduled game.
This weekend at the Medicine Hat tournament St. Albert has games scheduled against the Saskatoon Cubs, Medicine Hat Monarchs and Calgary Blues.
“I just want us to be disciplined and I want us to compete,” Lay said. “I don’t care what the score is. Play sound baseball, play the game the right way, give me everything you’ve got and if they’ll do those things, if we’ll do those things, then results are going to take care of themselves.”
